“We are oft to blame in this – ‘tis too much proved – that with devotion’s visage and pious action we do sugar o’er the devil himself.” Bill Shakespeare.

Why is it that when a politician or celebrity ‘fails’, two things happen? First of all, the level of ‘shock’ and ‘fury’ (favourite press words) is influenced by whether we love them, or we don’t. David Beckham cocks up, we are sorry for the poor, vulnerable love. Piers Morgan does the same thing, and everyone goes into hate mode. OK, ‘more hate’ mode.

In either case, ‘we’ point and pontificate, and the epithet “Look what s/he did!” emerges from our mouths. The same accusatory verbiage that emits from our lips when a colleague offends us in some small way. And in the same way, our willingness to forgive the transgression depends on whether or not we like that individual.

In other words, whether we consider them to be people of generally good character, or not.

My reading of Bill’s statement is this; that as long as we live and act in accordance with principles, and in doing so create in ourselves a person of good character (Third Resolution), then others are able to gloss over any temporary failure. It is easy to forgive those we respect and love when the oops isn’t too great.

But there is an insidious counter-thought expressed by some – and we’ve probably all done it at one time or another – and that is the belief that ‘if Mr Perfect or Miss Proper can do that, then so can I’.

Instead of looking at the behaviour, decrying it and (maybe) forgiving the formerly respected offender, we conclude that imperfection is now permissible, even desirable, and drop our own standards accordingly. It is the same psychology people used to start smoking ‘because James Bond did it’ or taking half-naked selfies because Kim and Kylie do it ‘in the name of empowering women’ (while F1 and other sports adopt the exact opposite view. Go figure.).

Many people like to bring others down to their level rather than put the work in to raise their own standards. In my book The Three Resolutions I wrote of a colleague who spent a great deal of time assassinating characters while always making sure that the holder of said character was absent, but never to their faces. My response in the event that he, or someone like him, attacked me like that was, “Are you trying to raise your self-esteem by lowering mine, because that will never work?”

Oh, and if it wasn’t me he was attacking in the subject’s absence, I’d shout to all present “Is X not here today, then?” Eventually, said colleague took the hint!

If someone else fails, it is never an excuse or justification to lower our own standards. We should try to be what we want to be, as much as we can. It’s a struggle, but it’s worth it. It is easier to forgive – and be forgiven – if we can do that, or even if we are seen to be trying to do that.

Larry Winget, American motivator-with-attitude, says in the introduction to his book, “It’s Called Work for a Reason!”,

“Bye honey, I’m off to work!”

Oh, bull! You aren’t going to work at all. You are going to the place that isn’t home, where you have to dress a little better than you do around the house. You are going to a place that is full of other people who also just lied to their significant others. You are all liars – you AND those people you say you work with. You say you are co-workers, when the truth is you’re only co-goers.”

I admit I chuckled a bit at that. I am in an envious position where I can manage my workload and, getting it done quickly with (slightly imperfect) time management expertise, I have more down time than most. I try to do an excellent job, but am most challenged when I, like you, are trying to do an excellent job when another expectation-of-an-excellent-job rolls up, closely followed by more. It’s hardly surprising that we want a quiet 10 minutes to prepare for more work.

But Larry does have a point. We are paid to do more than turn up, we are (as my first employer actually told us on an induction course) to put in a good hard day and go home pleasantly tired. Unfortunately, the world has changed and that is now harder to do.

I’m not talking about back-breaking manual labour, even though that is ever-so-slightly less back-breaking than even it was.

The world has changed in that our ability to focus on ‘work’ has been severely compromised by our inability to focus properly on anything! Mobile phones pinging, bleeping, ringing or just being in view mean we MUST check them several times an hour – even if only to see why we HAVEN’T heard a ping or a bleep or a ring. Downtime also excuses a quick Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat/WhatsApp session, doesn’t it?

Perhaps this is why we are now providing courses on ‘How to manage millennials’, a concept that confirms surrender to the ‘me’ generation, rather than suggesting, firmly but politely, that they are being paid to benefit the employer, they CAN be replaced if they don’t work hard enough, and the sun does NOT shine out of their baby-smooth bottoms.

You are paid to work, to produce.

Now, a slight counter-proposition, too. If you are not paid ‘just to be there’ as I suggest, then IF your productivity is good/excellent, IF your standards are high, and IF you can be seen to be a worker, THEN liberties can be given and taken. I recall an amusing story about a CEO who wanted a manager to have a word with an employee who turned up at 8AM, but went home at 12 noon and played golf all afternoon. After some enquiry, the manager told the CEO, “He’s the most productive employee you have! Get him to teach everyone else how to do that and we’ll be rolling in it!”

Work is measured by RESULTS, not merely PRESENCE. But if you can produce the first through maximising the use of the latter without burning out, your job will be safe. Wherever you work.

Almost every book I have read on personal development suggests that one key method for massive personal success is to get up at stupid-o’clock in the morning, strap on your trainers and go out of the front door to greet the day with a run. The first thing I note about such books is that they are frequently written by Mid- to South-Californians and not the Welsh. I would challenge any Californian to get up in Brecon at 5AM in December, strap on their Magnum boots and go for a skiddy run-fall-snap.

The other thing I note is that early morning for those NOT self-employed, childless and of independent financial means is a time of stress, trying to get ready to comply with the quite reasonable expectations of their employers and children, in whatever order. Bearing in mind that the old 9-5 day became the 8-4 some time ago if you wanted a parking space, and for the same reason the day is quickly becoming a 7-3 if you don’t want to park half a mile from your workplace, a 6AM run would only last 5 minutes anyway.

Yes, I know there ARE people who love that early run but we are not all the same. I tried an early run twice and it was miserable, even in summer. For me. Mid-day, early evening, love it. 6.30AM – shove it.

Hyrum Smith asks, “What do you do for the magic 3 hours from 5AM to 8AM?” To be frank, I usually sleep for the first two.

Which brings me to another reason I hate early morning runs. It’s my wife. When I wake up, the wife does, too. If you’re as lucky as me, when you wake up together you have an opportunity to hold each other for a while before you get up. I am not willing to lose that for an exercise opportunity.

The funny thing was that because of all those books, I started to blame t’wife for my failure to exercise because I didn’t want to deprive her (us) of that cwtch*. I wasn’t running because of her needs. It was her fault I was fat because I don’t run in the dawn gloom.

Blaming other people for our failures to execute in some life areas is easy. It absolves us of responsibility for what we aren’t doing that we know we should be doing. But that is a slippery slope, because one thing all the PD writers say that I absolutely agree with is that We are responsible for our situation, even if that responsibility lies only in how we choose to respond to our situation.

In other words, I am able to choose whether t’wife or an early morning run is the more important thing I need to do (I should rephrase that…).

I am able to decide what job I seek, even if I can’t dictate what I am expected to do when I get that job. I can decide how I respond to an imposition, and do a good job even though I didn’t want that (part of the) job in the first place.

Therefore, let me state quite clearly – I CHOOSE not to exercise in the morning. Just as, at the moment, I am choosing not to exercise at all. Which is a choice I must choose to change, and quickly, because I can’t find a reason not to. Damn it.

Oddly, when I am away from home I routinely go for a half hour on a treadmill at 6AM. Maybe it IS her fault after all………

In life, we are responsible for our decisions. Let’s make good ones but not just because someone promotes something that sounds good – it might not suit our situation and even if it might, what we gain may not be worth what we lose. Like cuddling a warm bum on a winter’s morn.

“If a goal isn’t connected to a deep ‘why,’ it may be good but it usually isn’t best.” Stephen Covey

I hereby truly and solemnly declare and affirm that I want to run a marathon.

That is a true statement. Deep down I want to be able to say that I ran a marathon, that I did it in less than 4 hours, and here’s my medal on display in the cabinet with my bronze swimming certificate.*

Yes, as far as running a marathon is concerned, I really want to run one. But I am not prepared to make the effort.

The reason I am not prepared to is because such a goal is often a dream that is planted by the achievements of others, by a desire to demonstrate a high level of physical fitness when such a level is not necessary for achievement of any of my other goals, and ultimately by ego – I want to brag about it.

Let me emphasise – they would be MY motives, and if you want to do a marathon for truly personal, deeply emotional reasons you go ahead and do it, and good luck. I am not here to tread on your dreams.

The point I am making is that achieving someone else’s goals, or seeking achievement for reasons of ego, probably won’t result in the deep happiness that comes from achievement pursued for truly personal, deeply impassioned motives. On the other hand, if achieving those goals is a means to a better end and not ends in themselves, the passion for those longer-term outcomes will help you achieve the smaller steps on the road to that greater success, the success you really seek. And let’s face it, you’ll be fitter and better able to enjoy that success (provided you haven’t crocked yourself in the process). And the greater success will be the one that serves your values system.

Seeing the goal as something which serves your values is the essence of values-based time management. Selecting a goal that doesn’t dovetail your values system is futile – you won’t do it, or you will detest every moment spent in striving for it, and UN-happiness is not a normal pursuit, is it? (Masochists excepted.)

I suspect that a 10k running ability is ample for most of us who don’t enjoy sport for sport’s sake. If you can run 6 miles in an hour and have a sensible diet you’ll be fit enough for most professions. If you want to get fit enough to achieve your other goals, decide on a sensible level of fitness, pursue that, and spend the rest of the time on the actual objective.

Spend as much of your time as you can on getting the result you seek, and a sensible-but-lesser proportion of time on the ‘side-issues’ that serve that objective. Plan your time so that you maximise the likelihood of achieving the (your) Main Thing, without spending too much time on achieving side-goals that will serve the greater objective but aren’t goals in themselves.

It’s a fine balancing act and using a suitable, personal planning system will help. In that, you put your Mission and Goals to the fore, and plan to spend as much of your time not on ‘shoulds’ or ‘coulds’, but on MUSTS. The other two can be fitted in around them.

And be careful that those ‘shoulds’ and ‘coulds’ don’t become excuses for procrastination! (Next week’s subject.)

*I don’t have one of those, either. I am not a fish and if I am going two miles on water, I know people with boats.

In his audio programme, ‘What Matters Most’, author and speaker Hyrum W Smith describes the following situation. You are in your car, alone, driving along when, without warning because you weren’t paying all that much attention, you find yourself entering a thick fog. It is all-enveloping; like a pilot flying into cloud who loses all sense of up and down or right-way-up, the depth and intensity of the fog means you lose all sense of where you are. You can barely see in front of you despite your summer-time use of fog lights, and you have no reference points ahead, to the side or behind that can help you.

Immediately, you brake but still concern yourself whether what is behind will collide with you. You slow, terrified that something unidentified and ahead of you will threaten your personal safety. You are now in a dead crawl, almost stopped. Your progress is extremely limited, if it exists at all.

Suddenly the fog lifts. Now you can see where you are going, in absolute clarity. The way ahead is clear. You start to accelerate; you make headway and your mind is now free from the clutter of fear. In time, you reach your destination.

Is your life occasionally just like that?

Do you sometimes lose all sense of direction and find yourself slowing to a dead crawl, wondering what you are for, where you are supposed to be going, even convinced that even when you DO know where that is, you are never going to get there? And when the opposite applies, when you really know what you’re heading for and how to get there, doesn’t life feel great, like you have the moon on a stick and nothing can spoil things?

High self-esteem comes from knowing what you want, seeking it and acting in a fashion that is wholly congruent with what you believe. The opposite is an experience many of us have, where what we are doing is absolutely not what we want to be doing, or (worse) the values of those for whom we are expected to do it are in conflict with our own.

I know I have seem people I respect and admire start to follow a ‘political’ path that is wholly out of kilter with how I thought they were, and knowing that they were in conflict with those beliefs meant I was having to spend time challenging my own in order to work for them. Instead of working towards the vision and with the values I thought we both had, they fogged things with ‘political sensitivity’ and our attention and activity were diverted and slowed.

This was a hateful place to be. Situations like this mean you start work for pay instead of passion, when the economic realities of life are the only thing stopping you from telling your employer to stuff their hypocrisy and their job. It’s when work becomes a chore instead of a vocation.

A failure, or environment-imposed inability to act in keeping with your values and personal vision causes the worst, densest, vision-spoiling and therefore dangerous fog that could ever be.

Smith’s example illustrates just how important Vision actually is. The contents of my two books, Effective Time and Life Management and The Three Resolutions, include some serious arguments for developing your own sense of purpose. Or Google values-based time management / mission statements/ values clarification and read more.

Please. I don’t want to collide with you because of your own fog. I have enough challenges dealing with my own.

That does not mean being a martyr. It just means deciding that in everything you do, you will act in accordance with your personal value system, unifying principles, credo, mission or code of conduct. You know what your rules are, and you know when you break them.

There will be times when bending them is permissible because of the prevailing circumstances. Remember that while you have no control over outside events, you DO have control over how you respond. Sometimes, the response you must provide may not be the one you would like to execute because the external circumstances simply won’t allow it. When that happens, you are not ‘failing’ to live with Integrity – you are just stuck with having to do something else, something slightly less perfect. Don’t focus on things you can’t do anything about – do the best you can and move on to the next opportunity to act congruently.

This is harder than it sounds because of those external influences on our lives, but each negative event is a chance to pause and decide not to be dictated to by emotion, ideology, your past, or other people’s expectations. It is a chance to decide ‘I choose to act differently’ and then to act on that better choice. Our past, and the lessons we learned are powerful influences over our decision-making but they need not dictate our response. We tend to overlook that it was seeing things differently that made our lives better, whether it was through education, experience or bitter regret. Instead of allowing those bad things to teach us by waiting for them to happen, we can instead prepare for bad things well in advance by deciding, using our self-awareness and imagination, how we will deal with them.

I sometimes wonder why, when my parents passed away, I did not collapse in tears. I loved them both dearly, but as they passed away there was some sense of ‘that’s the way it is’ within me, and with hindsight I think it was my values system and my study of Stephen Covey’s works that meant that what was happening wasn’t disaster, but a natural event that emotional collapse wouldn’t change. I waited until the funerals to shed a tear, yet even then did so quietly. I also suspect that dealing with death in a professional capacity took the edge off dealing with their deaths because ‘death’ wasn’t something unfamiliar. I only hope that those close to me didn’t think it cold – it was just that sadness is less of a curse to me than anger!

(Stop moping.)

2016 was bloody awful. (Outside of all the saintly drug addicts, alcoholics and other celebrities that warranted angst when they passed away.) And one of the reasons that it was awful (for me) is that I allowed myself to lose control, on one occasion so badly that it really sobered me up for weeks afterwards.

I fervently intend that 2017 will be a different lesson – where I truly role model that which I believe in, and teach. Like a comedian who is privately depressed, I feel like the personal development trainer who knows his stuff but manifestly fails to perform it. And I encourage you, dear reader, to do differently.

Every time you know you should be doing something but seek out excuses – decide to do it. Whenever you’re about to do something you know undermines your better intentions – decide NOT to do it. It only takes the time needed to take the reluctant action, or to step away from the event that impedes your success. It can be less than one second. One second that lies between guilt – and higher self-esteem. But execute, then repeat.

Decide on your purpose/mission/unifying principles and work damn hard at making it easy to act in their accord by making your decisions absolutely congruent with what you believe, and accepting those moments when you can’t. That’s my intention for 2017.

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as in being able to remake ourselves.” Mahatma Gandhi

One of the fascinating things I have learned in trying to start a personal development training and coaching business is how many such businesses exist, even in my out-of-the-way, not-quite-rural part of the world. I am somewhat under-whelmed in the levels of interest shown in my own services, but if the proliferation of such businesses is a reflection of a need for such help, it must in turn represent some kind of insidious internal disquiet in people about where they are now, compared to where they want to be. They are willing to pay stupid money to some companies (while resisting inexpensive little me) in order to find something they seem unable to discover for themselves.

On the other side of the scales, however, there are those who absolutely dismiss the potential benefits of training, whether it be for them or for the people they manage, work for, or even live with.

I read a great story that might illustrate what I see to be the benefit of self-leadership training. It concerns a middle aged man, shall we say in his early 50s, who was sat at his father’s bedside as the septuagenarian drew close to death. As the old man ebbed away, he managed to impart one more piece of wisdom to his son. He said, “Don’t do it like I did it, son. I was wrong. Live life better than I did.” Then he sighed, and left.

The son was bereft, partly because his father was gone but, as he disclosed to a confidante, also because he realised something else. To that confidante he said, “I am 55 years old, and my father says I’ve being doing it all wrong. I am half way, if not more through life. What the hell can I do with the knowledge that I’ve been doing it wrong?”

The confidante smiled wisely. He said, “How old is your son?”

“Twenty-five, why?”

“What your father learned by his seventies, you learned in your fifties, and you can teach your son in his twenties. In turn, he can teach his children from the day they are born. 70 years’ wisdom available to a child. That is what you can do.”

The purpose of coaching and training is to provide the student, Oh Padawan, with a short cut to the wisdom that they may find for themselves – but now. So they can use it, now. Not when it is too late.

A coach is not there to tell you what to do. S/he is there to help you discover where to look and to open your eyes to alternatives. The coach’s job is to assist you in your relentless search to be better than you already are. On your own terms and in your own circumstances.

“Change means that what was before wasn’t perfect. People want things to be better.” Esther Dyson
Epiphany. Defined by Webster’s Dictionary as “a moment of sudden realisation or insight”, and as a religious festival which isn’t quite what I’m looking to emulate. I have been conscious for some time that the terms that Stephen Covey used to describe The Three Resolutions, while profound and appropriate for their time and for his particular approach, may not be the best terms to use in the 21st Century. To an audience of those who need instant understanding and a willingness to participate in what is being communicated, expressions such as ‘self-denial’ and ‘noble purpose’ smack of a monastic approach to life, and that isn’t what The Three Resolutions website is supposed to be.

As from today, while I continue to use The Three Resolutions as my website address (‘cos I paid again for it last week), the tag line is no longer that sourced from Covey. Henceforth the tag line will be a little fresher. Now, it is:

Resolution, Refinement, Results.

If you’ve read my book (now unpublished while I completely review it with this new focus in mind), or the earliest posts when the 3R concept was first put on line, you will be aware that I consider that the 3Rs are a progressive approach to getting results, insofar as self-discipline leads to character and competence leads to serving in a way that benefits us all. That hasn’t changed, only the way I am going to describe it from now on.

Coincidentally, the three words I have now chosen mean the same ‘things’, and happen to fit the 3R logo.*

But make no mistake, the approach is the same –

decide what you need to do or stop doing, in order to

become the person you want to be with the skills you need to have, all with the objective to

ethically go out and make things happen that serves all concerned.

Up the Pyramid of Principled Productivity, so to speak. (Must write that one down. Oh, so I have…)

My focus is now going to be on that review and rewrite, so please watch my @3ResolutionsGuy Twitter feed for interim updates and things develop.

Personal Update Bit

One of my philosophies on life is that service to others does not necessarily have to involve self-sacrifice. It can also include doing something you love doing, in a way that others also benefit. This week I passed my Institute of Advanced Motorists ‘National Observer’ Qualification which will allow me greater opportunities to engage others in enjoying their driving while doing it better, safer and for the particularly adept, faster (but within legal limits, I stress).

And there is absolutely NOTHING in the 3R concept that disallows preening once in a while.

*(That took AGES to work out, finding words that meant discipline, character/competence and service, but which started with the letter R. I have new respect for advertisers……)

“Knowledge will bring you the opportunity to make a difference.” – Claire Fagan

I love that advert for a major stationer, where Andy Williams sings ‘It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ as parents escort their children around aisles teeming with paper, pens, books and other essential tools of learning. After 6 weeks (or 104 days in the US, according to the theme from ‘Phineas and Ferb’), parents have had enough of dealing with their first priority – family – and now want to pass babysitting duty back to their kids’ teachers. Tomorrow (subject to one of those Teacher Training Days that always appear to occur just after a week off), millions of kids will excitedly don their school clothes and trot quickly off to school.

That enthusiasm lasts 24 hours, by the way.

On a serious note, just as for us goal-achievement-failures who start a new project every New Year/Birthday/1st of the month/end of term/start of term, tomorrow is a great day to start teaching your children not only that education is important, but also that not all education is important. (Eh?)

We, as parents, have tendency to demand that our children excel in every single subject they study. If they have eight As and two Cs, we demand to know why they are failing in RE and Drama. The strange thing is that the reality of the UK education system is that we take 12-14 subjects at 16, and narrow that down to 3 or 4 at 18 – then down to one, or for the particularly clever, two subjects at University.

There is no question that we should encourage our kids to do their best in everything they do. But we should allow them the leeway that we allow ourselves and acknowledge that Einstein probably wasn’t a great biologist, Sir David Attenborough isn’t famous for being an expert on woodwork, and David Beckham is not the greatest English scholar ever known to man.

And our kids will generally be great at one or two things, good at some more, and rubbish at others.

They should, as early as possible, be encouraged to discover their strengths and to focus on those, while also managing any weaknesses and finding ways to deal with them.

I was absolutely overjoyed many years ago when my son, who was at the time an undiagnosed dyslexic, was asked to read something out at the primary school ‘graduation’, another American import to the UK we could do without. Did he read it? No. He learned it, and spoke without reference to the card in front of him. Word perfect. He can read, but at his own speed. He has since qualified in a field he loves – farming (not hereditary, I assure you) and is an absolute star mimic. He is happy.

But imagine the potential for someone who can learn quotes by rote and then has to speak in public. He is already well ahead when it comes to learning Public Speaking, something a lot of people dread and yet something they will all have to do at some time in their lives. He has a self-taught life skill because of a challenge.

At the same time, I am also the proud uncle of some kids who have done exceptionally well in their exams, this year. Learning suits some, but not every talent is necessarily served by the state’s syllabus.

Encourage your kids to learn well, to do the best they can, but to focus more of their time on the things that will matter to them. Utilise the Three Resolutions to instil within them the discipline to do what needs to be done to become competent in their chosen vocations so that they can serve their chosen clients to the best of their ability.

Instead of creating well-educated but exceptionally bored professional drones.

“The needle of our conscience is as good a compass as any.” Ruth Wolff

I write about Conscience in some detail in my book The Three Resolutions. I write about how a conscience is developed and how we all have one, even the criminals amongst us. I also write about how, in identifying our most important priorities and values, we can utilise that inner voice to direct us in our daily activities. The conscience is a core ingredient of our character.

When we listen to our conscience, we live lives of peace and productivity. When we ignore it, we feel guilt, angst, and occasionally some confusion.

Yet ignore it we so often do. We actively seek to stifle it when something potentially pleasurable presents itself to us. We don’t want to miss out on that attractive experience, and so we ignore the conscience, or turn its volume down to 1. To add to the stifling effect, we raise the volume on the ‘Why I CAN do/have this’ button, to make sure we can hear what is calling us forward to the psycho-hypocrisy that is about to occur. We find a rational excuse for what we are about to do and lie to ourselves. As Covey put it, we tell ourselves Rational-lies. Then, immediately or soon after we execute on the lie we just told ourselves, we feel that pang of guilt.

Conscience does not go away.

No, I am not a saint and I am as guilty of this as anyone. Perhaps more so, in the sense that as a writer on the subject I find myself doing it when perhaps I ought to be setting an example. I am often extremely conscious of that expression, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

On the plus side, however, this knowledge and understanding arguably presents me with a better opportunity for positive change, eventually. Those who don’t realise what they are doing have no motive to change. They don’t know that they can.

Funny thing is, they will spend a lot of time justifying their poor behaviour. They will argue quite strongly and loudly that the behaviour they are displaying is okay, for some reason or other. (Good examples are smoking and drinking.)

The funniest thing about their shouting is because they know while they are doing it, they (and I quote), “ignore the conscience, or turn its volume down to 1. To add to the stifling effect, they raise the volume on the ‘Why I CAN do/have this’ button, to make sure they and we can hear what is calling them forward to the psycho-hypocrisy that is occurring.”